I agree. They still have alot to prove, but so does every other team in the NCAA right now except maybe Wichita St. They can't do too much more than they've already done.

True, but there are already several teams that I think I can quite comfortably call title contenders/favorites: UCLA, Ohio State, Florida, North Carolina. Then there are teams that could very well be there by March, but have at least one major question to answer: Arizona, Kansas, Pitt, LSU, maybe Washington, maybe UConn.

They may be young, but so are a lot of other teams. I wasn't as high on OSU as others going into the year, but they're legit.

Three of their starters are experienced upperclassmen: junior Jamar Butler,
5th-year senior Ron Lewis, and senior Ivan Harris. And it doesn't matter a single bit that Oden's a freshman because he became the best player in the nation the second he stepped on the court.

So that leaves Conley, who's playing well beyond his years; Cook, who's their No. 2 wing scoring option, and Lighty, who's a role player.

I don't see how their youth is a problem. Not like KU's inconsistency, Arizona's aversion to guarding people, or the lack of firepower of Wisconsin or Pitt, for example.

Now, North Carolina, I could see their youth biting them come tourney time, because they really only have Rayshawn Terry in terms of big-time upperclassmen. Same with Kansas, with six freshmen and sophomores in the rotation, but not to the same extent as with UNC.

Memphis, while explosive, is sloppy, and c'mon, you're gonna hang your hat stopping San Diego State and Houston? Arizona ranks 120th in raw defensive efficiency. That's bad. Even their ranking of No. 41 in adjusted defensive efficiency isn't great. No Final Four team in the last three years has been worse than No. 27 in adjusted effiency or No. 52 in raw efficiency, and the average adjusted ranking of the last 12 Final Four teams has been No. 9 nationally.

They may be improving, and what I saw of the game last night did look better, but they still have a long way to go on the defensive end. An Illinois team that was without Randle and Smith did whatever they wanted offensively, despite being on the road and facing a near 3-to-1 foul discrepancy, for about 32-35 minutes of that game.

If the media was saying anything negative about Arizona's defense in the 2006-2007 season, I wasn't aware. I'm going by what the numbers tell me and more importantly, what my eyes have told me.

Memphis, while explosive, is sloppy, and c'mon, you're gonna hang your hat stopping San Diego State and Houston? Arizona ranks 120th in raw defensive efficiency. That's bad. Even their ranking of No. 41 in adjusted defensive efficiency isn't great. No Final Four team in the last three years has been worse than No. 27 in adjusted effiency or No. 52 in raw efficiency, and the average adjusted ranking of the last 12 Final Four teams has been No. 9 nationally.

They may be improving, and what I saw of the game last night did look better, but they still have a long way to go on the defensive end. An Illinois team that was without Randle and Smith did whatever they wanted offensively, despite being on the road and facing a near 3-to-1 foul discrepancy, for about 32-35 minutes of that game.

If the media was saying anything negative about Arizona's defense in the 2006-2007 season, I wasn't aware. I'm going by what the numbers tell me and more importantly, what my eyes have told me.

Im just saying they are improving from the beggining and if they keep playing like they have been playing they will end uo being a excellent offensive team with a decent defense

Sorry, I should've put up a link. It's from www.kenpom.com, one of my favorite basketball websites.

And I certainly think they could be a title contender. But while they may be improving defensively, they aren't close to being there yet, in terms of winning a national championship.

Obviously everyone needs to improve over the course of the year. But I don't think Arizona is on the short list of teams that has every facet of the game in place or close to it to be considered a title favorite right now. They're one of the teams on the next tier that still has a glaring hole to fix.